


and nothing.

by sevensevan



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, this week on 'i project my mental health issues onto fictional characters'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 23:00:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13844835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevensevan/pseuds/sevensevan
Summary: It is the blood in her veins, not that on her hands, that makes them hate her.





	and nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> just a short canon compliant thing. but hey, i managed to not put skimmons in this time so. angst and anger and alcoholism ahead.

You learn quickly that everyone wants something from you.

The nuns want obedience, silence. They want a captive audience to their endless preaching, someone to threaten with brimstone and death. Foster families want a perfect daughter or a servant or a tax write-off. Your friends in the orphanage want someone to talk to, but they don’t want to listen.

And S.H.I.E.L.D.? S.H.I.E.L.D. wants _everything_.

This is what they take from you: your freedom. Your blood. Your youth. Your soul.

You are a murderer at someone else’s words, and the world may not sing your praises, but Coulson does. Your team looks at you like a hero, but when the ground shakes beneath them, they send you away. They look at you with fear and hatred and none of the love that you’ve so foolishly learned to expect from them.

It is the blood in your veins, not that on your hands, that makes them hate you.

They ask you for your loyalty, they ask you for your innocence, they take your soul and your blood and your will and your heart and you are a hollowed out log, rotting as you live and fight.

And then—

You say _no_.

You don’t know if you loved Lincoln. You don’t know if the dirt left inside of you can feel love. But he tasted like salvation, and they took him from you.

So you leave. You don’t give them what’s left of you, and that is all it takes for you to fall from hero to monster.

See, that’s what no one ever told you about being a hero. The world will take and take and take until there is nothing left to give, and if you live, they will throw you away to die. And what they never told you about villains is that most of them are just heroes who said no. They asked your mother to be a lab rat, and she said no, and they took her daughter and her husband and her life, and you cannot hate her for fighting back, not anymore.

You say no. And you are not your mother, so when they come to take from you anyway, you do not kill. You run. You run like hell. You run _from_ hell.

It is not enough. Your eyes are still empty and your soul is still missing and everything that was taken from you you cannot get back.

You wish they had never found you. You wish you still lived in a van in an alley with bright eyes and long hair and you wish you could still sleep without three drinks burning in the back of your throat.

Some days you want to die. But they have not taken your life, and you are stubborn and brave and fueled by cheap liquor bought with stolen money and an anger so deep it makes your bones prickle, and you hold on to life by your fingernails. Someday you will claw your way back up, bleeding and scarred and angry, and you will take back everything you once had, the way it was taken from you, with violence and hatred and destruction in your wake.

But you haven’t reached that day yet. You are still hanging by a thread of rage and bitterness, so you rob banks and collapse bridges and get drunk every night and laugh at the headlines that call you a terrorist because they have no idea what real fear, real pain is.

You survive. You do not live, but you survive, and you are not a hero.

You are not a hero.

_You are not a hero._

**Author's Note:**

> hope you got something out of this. to the person who requested a fic on tumblr, if you're reading this: i swear i'm working on it. i'm on tumblr @daisys-quake; my fic requests are always open (just very slow). if you liked this, check out my other aos fics. leave a comment and kudos if you enjoyed.


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